


sweets to the sweet

by macabre



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Depressed Peter Parker, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 21:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: Tony binds the toes together so they’ll heal correctly. Peter absolutely isn’t worried about it. They’ll heal within a few days unless he absentmindedly kicks his locker closed at school. Which he might.“I love you, Peter. You feel that, right? You feel more than just the hurt.”Peter wonders what sanguine parenting book Tony has been reading, but it does cut through the fog. He logically knows how much he is hurting everyone around him, and he’s sick of them all saying that it’s not worse than his own abuse. It’s the only thing he can find in himself to really feel bad about.





	sweets to the sweet

**Author's Note:**

> There is not only child abuse present in this story, but implied self-mutilation. These themes could be potentially triggering, so please read with caution and take care of yourself.

The blows don’t bother him.

They don’t.

He’s not scared to come home at night, often wondering what waits for him. Will it be the carrot or the stick? Or will Henry even be there? Will he be awake? The man knows that Peter comes in late, and while sometimes there is a physical repercussion, Peter will never forget the time he came home to Henry sitting alone in the TV room with a plate of cookies in front of him. 

Without a comment, he offered the plate to Peter as he quietly passed. Peter was sure they must be poisoned, but he took one anyway. 

It wasn’t poison. It was fine. They were good, even, and May clearly didn’t make them.

Peter only half lives with them anyway. He’s in his last year of high school and patrols a lot outside of class, so between those two things and the internship, he has a room he keeps at the tower and May becomes surprisingly cool with it after she moves in with her boyfriend.

Not that May isn’t onto them; she can tell that Peter has lost weight and sleep. “What’s wrong, baby?” she asks, often. She asks when it’s just the two of them, she asks in front of Henry. “You’re so quiet all the time now. You’ve never been so quiet in your life.”

But Peter is fine, and when Henry cuts him off in the doorframe one morning before school, Peter squares his shoulders and just waits. Henry is subject to his own range of moods, and sometimes it’s an almost playful shove and other times it’s Henry putting both hands around Peter’s neck and squeezing until he can see the black spots in his vision.

Peter takes it and never once raises a hand against Henry. When a man tries to rob a bank on a Thursday night, Peter pummels his face in until he hears teeth hit the pavement, but Henry is fine. Henry is home and he’s manageable. 

Tony waits for him outside the school office the next day. “Signed you out early. Let’s go,” he says. 

It’s definitely about the number he did on the robber before cops could pick him up, but Peter doesn’t bring it up. Tony will have to, if he wants to talk about it. Surprisingly, Tony must chicken out about asking, because it never comes up. There’s a stereo effect happening where he asks a lot of the same things that May asks every time he sees him, though.

“You sleeping alright, Pete?” or “I’m worried about you eating. What can I get you to eat?”

For what it’s worth, Peter knows that Tony really cares, and that makes him really try for him. Peter shows up and engages. They have a friendly engineering competition going on, and they’re only allowed to work at the same time in the same space. It’s a nice challenge outside the realm of Peter cramming to memorize dates for history or different tense use in Spanish. School isn’t easy, but it is boring, and Tony certainly is not. 

Henry is, however, certifiably boring. And predictable. Peter knows his aunt like the back of his hand, knows when she’ll take a moment to herself, knows that her seeing a certain commercial will spark a sudden desire to go grocery shopping. He knows that he could easily remove himself in that split second, and Henry would never been have a chance of catching him.

Instead, he stays sitting obediently on the couch next to the man while his aunt runs out for something she needs for a potluck item for work tomorrow. Peter knew she’d forget about the potluck when she mentioned it last week. Now, the door closes and the lock clicks into place and Peter waits to see what kind of mood Henry is in. 

The man flips the channel to some collegiate sports game. He doesn’t touch Peter all that week, and the following week he gifts an old guitar to Peter after cleaning out his garage. Peter doesn’t know how to play the guitar, but he does try and learn a few chords. Henry hears them, barges into Peter’s room, and breaks the guitar over Peter’s lap.

He sits there in shock, looking at the pieces of wood, still held together with string. Henry is gone, vanished into the silence of a still house again. Slowly, Peter reaches for one of the pieces - the neck of the instrument, which is now missing the head and almost pointed into a spear along one end. 

Peter squeezes it until it snaps in his hand, and then he jams the pointed end right into his kneecap where he feels a faint bruise growing already. Now, there will be a real bruise, at least for a day.

It’s there for more than a day. The cut and the bruise around it are clearly infected, and while Peter knows it will be fine and clear up soon, it lingers. He saves the strings from the guitar and uses them around a perp’s neck. 

That gets Tony to talk. “Pete. Kid.” He sighs. “What is going on?”

He’s called a hiatus on their competition, and Peter tries to deflect by teasing him that Tony must see defeat coming. 

“I know I’m not good at this, and I know I’m not your real father, but I’m serious. I’m really worried about you.”

Peter tries to deflect again by saying he’s hungry; usually, Tony would jump at the chance to feed him. Tonight, however, he ignores the comment.

“May and I want you to talk to someone. I know there’s a lot going on, and it doesn’t have to be forever, but moving was a big deal for you two, and talking to someone can help. I know you like Henry just fine, but it’s still a lot.”

Peter smiles. Sure, he’ll talk to someone. 

“Dude, it’s so obvious you’re depressed,” Ned tells him at school soon after when Peter mentions the therapist. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

Peter can talk to anyone; he even confides in Henry that he isn’t sure he wants to major in engineering next year, something he can’t even fathom aloud to anyone else. When he spots Henry with May at one of his Decathalon matches, he worries that he’s telling Tony exactly that, but whatever he’s actually saying to Tony gets a big laugh from the man. 

Tony’s wearing one of their team shirts under his blazer. What a loser, Peter says grinning. Tony just claps him on the back and takes them all out to dinner. Over the four courses of Chinese food, Tony relaxes enough that Peter wonders if he genuinely likes Henry. 

“You’ve got everyone fooled,” Peter remarks from the floor of the garage. He’d been looking for a box of his that they’d shoved somewhere out there when Henry quietly exited the house and grabbed Peter, pushed him face first into the hood of the car parked right there. His nose is bleeding and possibly broken, but that’s the worst of it. Mostly, he’d just let his body go and slip down the front of the hood. He looks up at Henry from the ground and listens to the whistling sound in his nose.

“Guess we have that in common.”

He’s not sure what the therapist tells May or Tony; it’s enough that they have the same look of pity and concern written all over their faces whenever Peter is around, which used to be only a part time thing. He almost prefers Henry’s company some days, because at least the man mostly treats him like normal.

“Kid.” Tony stops him with a hand on his arm as Peter slinks past the living area late one night.“You’ve lost another three pounds.”

Peter frowns. “Did FRIDAY tell you that?” He hasn’t worn his suit for the past week so he knows it wasn’t Karen who snitched. Tony took the suit from him, said he needed a break and that he could have it back soon. It didn’t stop Peter from going out and kicking the shit out of a would-be rapist though.

“Pete.” 

“Tony.”

They’re engaged in some kind of staring contest, a type of warfare that is honestly more exhausting than taking the beating from the other man in his life. 

“I’m tired.”

Tony lets him go. 

A few days later, there is an intervention in the therapist’s office. Usually, it’s Tony that takes him since he’s the one who found and vetted the doctor. Peter knows he’s in for it when May and Henry are there too.

The four of them sit in a half circle around the therapist’s desk while she drones on about his mental health and how it’s effecting his physical health. Peter spaces, thinking about the bloody guitar strings in his backpack. He stares at Henry, sitting the farthest from him, and he doesn’t blink. 

May is crying, Henry is stony eyed at the wall, and Tony is watching Peter like a hawk. He asks Peter if he wants to go home with him that night once the meeting is over, and May looks like she wants to protest, but Henry grabs her hand and shakes his head.

They get in Tony’s car. He doesn’t start the engine. His hands shake on the steering wheel, then Tony Stark is honest to God crying in front of him. 

And that scares Peter. For a moment, it’s like breaking through the waves and feeling air on his face and in his lungs for the first time in months. He takes a deep breath in, then sinks back down. He shoves that feeling away and watches passively again. 

“Pete.” He reaches blindly for Peter with one hand while the other wipes away tears. “Your broken nose last week? After I took the suit, but before you came home on Tuesday?”

Peter knows what he’s asking, but he makes him say it. 

“That was Henry?”

And Peter knows there’s no denying it. 

“What else - ” Tony has to clear his throat. “What else has he done?”

Peter shrugs. “Not much. He’s a shover. Doesn’t really mean it.”

“Doesn’t really mean it - Peter. That’s abuse. It’s the most clear cut definition of abuse there is!” Tony’s done crying, but his face grows redder. 

“I take worse hits from kids at school, let alone patrol.”

“He’s an adult, Peter. He’s supposed to take care of you, and all this time I thought you liked him. You told me that the two of you went camping, for God’s sake, -”

“We did go camping.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing happened. We caught zero fish and got ate up by mosquitoes.”

“Peter.”

“It’s a Jekyll and Hyde thing. Most of the time, he’s a nice guy. I like him.”

There are a few more tears rolling down Tony’s blank face. Peter wonders if that’s what he looks like, sometimes.

Tony starts the car and takes him home. He puts on Star Wars so Peter knows that he’s supposed to hang out in the living room. Peter sits and waits for the end to come, but Tony just gently pulls Peter into his side and quietly watches. He falls asleep first, and Peter owes it to him to stay, so he maneuvers them so they’re both lying down side-by-side. The next morning, Peter wakes up alone and he can tell by the all business look of Tony that he’s told May and that they’re working on whatever they plan to do. 

By dinnertime, May arrives with some bags, and surprisingly, no one makes him talk about it that day. There are no tears that night, just a fake smiley act. The tears do come though in the following days, and Peter has an almost day long emergency session with his therapist because they want Peter to talk about every detail. 

He confesses some of the things. Others, he keeps to himself. There’s no evidence, and he doesn’t need to do any more harm now. He does feel bad for May and Tony, but he wishes they weren’t pressing charges and he wishes he could just eat one meal alone. 

There’s a physical exam with a different doctor because apparently they don’t believe him that the abuse was just physical. 

May gets another unit in their old apartment building back, but even as she’s setting up it, Peter lives with Tony. The suit is still locked up in some part of the tower, and the moment Peter’s sneakers are off the beaten path between school and the tower, Tony is there. Peter’s hunkered down, watching from some alleyways hoping something might catch his eye, but as soon as he hears a particular pitch of an Aston Martin engine approaching, he knows he’s done. 

When Peter’s left alone that night, he sits on the floor in his room in just boxers and looks at how thin his legs are. He pushes at his kneecaps, thinking about how it felt to ram the wood through his leg. It itches. He tears at his skin, but it’s ineffective because his nails are too short. He doesn’t really think about anything when he reaches forward with one hand and breaks two of his toes on his right foot. 

The crack is satisfying though.

He pushes his feet back into his sneakers before Tony even has time to get there. He smiles and greets him just like the old Peter Parker would have as his mentor just stands in the doorway, staring down at Peter’s feet. 

“Take them off. Now.”

Tony binds the toes together so they’ll heal correctly. Peter absolutely isn’t worried about it. They’ll heal within a few days unless he kicks his locker closed at school. Which he might.

“I love you, Peter. You feel that, right? You feel more than just the hurt.”

Peter wonders what sanguine parenting book Tony has been reading, but it does cut through the fog. He logically knows how much he is hurting everyone around him, and he’s sick of them all saying that it’s not worse than his own abuse. It’s the only thing he can find in himself to really feel bad about. 

He’s verbally conceded to the point that it’s abuse, even if he doesn’t believe that it was. How could it be when Peter could have stopped it any time? The power within him to do far worse to Henry was always there. 

“I am sorry, you know,” he tells Tony.

“Peter.”

“I know - no apologies, but. Just so you know. I’m sorry that it’s something I put you through.” 

No matter how sick inside Peter feels, he stills feels a great love for May and Tony and Ned, the three who have taken the brunt of the past year, and it’s about the only thing he really feels, even after he experiments with pulling a tooth out of his mouth. In the back. No one will see.

Except FRIDAY, of course. Living full time with Tony Stark has its drawbacks. He sighs while Tony frets about it, ordering soup for him to replace the other nutrient dense dinner he had planned out.

“I don’t even think about hurting myself. It just happens sometimes. Like a black out. I come to, and a chunk of hair is in my fist,” he confides. Tony is gone for the week on a business trip he couldn’t put off, so he spends time between May and Happy.

Happy doesn’t have the kid friendly gloves that sugar coat; he asks all the same questions that everyone else has, but he makes sure Peter can tell how stupid he thinks it all is. Peter just laughs about it. 

Peter gradates from high school. He’s got all of his hair, albeit it’s shorter now than it’s ever been to cover up the some of the patches growing back in, and a mouth full of teeth after oral surgery. There are no broken bones or infected cuts. No hidden guitar strings in his backpack, just a whole lot of emotional baggage. 

“Weeeeeeee did it!” Peter says, smiling from atop his folded arms on the dining room table while Tony and May play hostess, doling out dinner to the others who came to celebrate. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, and later Ned and MJ.

Both May and Tony frown at him. Happy rolls his eyes. Rhodey and Pepper are too polite to let any emotion betray their face. Peter can honesty say he loves them all, enough to carry the baggage.


End file.
